There you go, about two gallons of a very easy tortilla soup that is very, very tasty. Pretty cheap too, since it can be three or four meals, all the ingredients can be had for under $10-$15 if you shop right.

I developed this recipe after visiting La Parilla Suiza here in Tucson. They have the best tortilla soup ever. I asked if they could tell me how they made it. They said all they could tell me was that it was chicken stock with enchilada sauce. I took it from there.

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot and saute the garlic for a minute or so. Remove the garlic from the oil and then puree the garlic, onion, tomatoes and tomato paste together in the blender. Add the puréed garlic, onion and tomato mixture back into the pot and bring to a boil.

Add the chili powder, cumin, chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil again, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the lime juice and stir well.

(Another trick I've done is to soak the tortilla strips in the above recipe in a brine of 1 tablespoon of kosher salt with 1/4 cup of lime juice for a minute before baking. The resulting lime&salt tortilla chips are fantastic by themselves or in this soup!)